It’s just over a week until the launch of Eve: Valkyrie on PlayStation VR. The studio here at CCP Newcastle is buzzing, even the Autumn weather can’t dampen our excitement.

Just a few short days from now and our game will be out there in the hands of brand new PlayStation VR owners. Ships will be chosen, squadrons formed, missions flown, alliances made and broken. The Eve: Valkyrie community is standing by to introduce all you new recruits to the things that make Eve: Valkyrie special: the terror of deep space, the glory of flight, and the joy of a hard-won kill.

So what better way to mark the occasion than a Double XP Weekend? From October 14 through October 17, Valkyrie pilots will receive Double XP from every mission they fly. And that’s Double XP for everyone, including our veteran PC players — Eve: Valkyrie is the first ever virtual reality game with full cross-platform play between PC and PS4. Of course, our PC players don’t get the exclusive PlayStation VR content we announced last week, so they might be in a vengeful mood… be careful out there.

If you’d like to know more about the game, or meet our team of VR developers, head to evevalkyrie.com and join the conversation on our forums, or follow Eve: Valkyrie on Twitter.

See you in the next life.

]]>http://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/10/06/dare-to-rise-in-eve-valkyrie-launching-october-13-on-ps-vr/feed/20http://blog.us.playstation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/29493773124_a9a3843ba3_z.jpg4.58Sr. Brand Manager, CCP Games207Everything You Need to Know About Eve: Valkyriehttp://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/08/29/everything-you-need-to-know-about-eve-valkyrie/
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/08/29/everything-you-need-to-know-about-eve-valkyrie/#commentsMon, 29 Aug 2016 13:30:34 +0000http://blog.us.playstation.com/?p=181129We’ve put you in the pilot’s seat for the ride of a lifetime as you’re launched into space with cutting edge visuals and silky smooth controls. There’s no pre-flight checklist, no fuel tanks to fill — only instant adrenaline as you full throttle into battle, line up your first target, and squeeze the trigger.

Since March 2016 we’ve been refining and updating our combat to make it as intuitive, comfortable, and edge-of-your-seat thrilling as possible. We’ve learned a lot about what works (and what doesn’t) in VR. We’ve balanced and tuned our ships and abilities with help from a very active community of players. As part of that process we’ve helped to define some of VR best practices that are ensuring a deeper immersion and greater sense of presence.

The whole team here at CCP Newcastle are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the PlayStation community. As gamers, we can’t wait to welcome you to our virtual worlds. Here’s a very brief overview of what you can expect to see when you take that giant leap into the future…

Chronicles (Single Player)

These are an interactive archive of virtual memories reconstructed from the clone data of fallen pilots. Chronicles can be summarized into four gameplay categories:

Recall memories are narrative missions that provide some of the backstory to the events before and during the current Valkyrie timeline. They also introduce new players to the features and gameplay they will be experiencing during multiplayer combat.

Scout mode allows you to freely explore any of our game maps without fear of attack from the enemy. While cruising around you’ll be able to locate and listen to Echoes, which provide more backstory and Valkyrie lore. We’ve also hidden some Salvage containers within the maps. If you find one, shoot it and scoop the loot!

Survival mode pits you against increasing waves of enemy AI to set a high score as you practice against a range of ship classes and squad combinations. It comes in two selectable levels of intensity: Novice and Pro, and is available on all our game maps.

Training modules are also available to help you brush up on your flight skills. Race through obstacle courses, try out the different ship class abilities, or put any of your ships through its paces in our AI filled Test Arena.

Multiplayer Combat

Team based multiplayer shooting is the beating heart of the Valkyrie experience. It’s here that you will earn XP, increase your pilot’s Rank, and gain access to a wider range of ships and upgrades. You can fly solo, or form a squad with up to five players to properly coordinate your attacks. You can also play in co-op mode and face off against AI pilots that are match-made to complement your skills.

There are three core ship classes in Valkyrie: Fighter (assault), Heavy (tank), and Support (healer). Each class has its own progression and class specific XP. As you earn XP in a particular class it will unlock new ships and upgrades for you to craft.

Crafting uses Silver — an in-game currency given as a reward after each battle, and Salvage — materials that are collected from destroyed enemies during a battle. At the end of a battle the total salvage accumulated by the team is shared between all players on the team.

Coordinating attacks and objectives within a balanced team is the key to success. There are no end-game ships that will give you significant advantage. The ships, upgrades, and abilities are all tuned to offer tactical choice and variety over firepower alone.

There are three main multiplayer game modes:

Team Deathmatch is dogfighting in its purest form. The objective is simple — wipe out the opposing teams’ clone resources by raking up the kills!

Control is an objective-based game mode in which teams fight for dominance over three capture points. To scoop a point, players must deploy a drone near the objective, leaving them free to continue fighting and defending.

Carrier Assault is an epic game of base attack/defend. Teams fight to gain control of three objectives. If two out of three objectives are completed, the shield defences on their opponents Carrier will be disabled for a short period of time. With the shields down, the attacking team must destroy the Carrier’s cooling nodes. If these nodes are all demolished the Carrier’s core will be exposed and the attackers must rush into the trench at the center of the mothership to deliver the killing blow. Stand back for an explosive finale!

It was always our intention to build Eve: Valkyrie from solid foundations. You join us on this journey — with the launch of PlayStation VR, console gaming will take a giant leap forward into a brand new and exciting paradigm. Games as we know it are evolving. At CCP, we’re all incredibly excited to be a part of that story, both as creators and as players. So light your engines and prep for lift off… it’s time to go into battle.

Or as the Valkyrie say — “fly together, die together!”

]]>http://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/08/29/everything-you-need-to-know-about-eve-valkyrie/feed/38http://blog.us.playstation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/28624481564_dbb6259b0e_z.jpg4Lead Game Designer, CCP Games384October Means War for DUST 514http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/10/08/october-means-war-for-dust-514/
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/10/08/october-means-war-for-dust-514/#commentsTue, 08 Oct 2013 18:30:59 +0000http://blog.us.playstation.com/?p=117506This October, PlayStation Store DUST 514 offerings and intense organized play events are hitting harder than a perfectly placed Orbital Bombardment. Below is a timeline of what is coming, when it is coming and how it can shape your war. It all kicks off October 8, the day of the DUST 514 Uprising 1.5 update deployment.

DUST 514 Tactical Edition – 10.8.13 ($19.99)
The DUST 514 war machine fires the first shot of the skirmish with the release of the DUST 514 Tactical Edition. This custom version will include the DUST 514 client, Active Skill Boosters, Aurum, and a host of Packaged Fits for both dropsuits and vehicles to sharpen your edge in battle.

DUST 514 Tactical Edition contains:

DUST 514 Client

7-Day Active Skill Booster

50 x CreoDron Breach Heavy Assault Vehicle Featured Fit

50 x Kaalakiota Recon Dropship Featured Fit

100 x Hunter Scout Dropsuit Featured Fit

100 x Mauler Heavy Dropsuit Featured Fit

100 x Shock Assault Dropsuit Featured Fit

50 x ‘LC-217’ Saga Light Assault Vehicles

2,500 Aurum

Factional Warfare Challenge – 10.8.13 through 10.15.13
The empires of New Eden are battling each other in Factional Warfare and pushing harder than ever for galactic dominance. For a full week in October the four factions of the EVE Universe are calling all mercenaries to prove their loyalty by fighting in their name. Your allegiance will not go unacknowledged and you will be rewarded handsomely for your efforts. Whether you are in a DUST 514 corporation or a lone gun for hire, the Factional Warfare Challenge will put you in the front lines of the larger conflicts of New Eden and in line for the bounties of war.

During the event players will be asked to meeting the following criteria:

Play and complete 20 Factional Warfare matches and win 55% of those matches for a specific faction to win Tier I rewards– 100 prototype equipment items of your chosen faction

Play and complete 30 matches and win 50% of those matches for a specific faction to win Tier II rewards– 75 prototype weapons of your chosen faction

Play and complete 40 matches or more and win 45% of those matches for a specific faction to Tier III rewards– 50 prototype dropsuits of your faction

DUST 514 Reactivation Event 10.9-10.23
Have you been inactive in DUST 514 since August 8? DUST 514 is offering a strong incentive to bring that immortal clone mercenary out of stasis and back into the action. Log into DUST 514 and compete in 5 matches or more October 9-23 to receive 100 Black Eagle Packaged Fits and 100 Quafe dropsuits for revisiting the game.

Note: Only DUST 514 accounts that have been inactive since August 8 are eligible.

Weaponized and Ready (W.A.R.) Kits – 10.22
The playing field has just been leveled and the battlefield has been forever altered with the arrival of the DUST 514 W.A.R. (Weaponized and Ready) Kits. From the minds of the DUST 514 development team come a series of lethal, customized Packaged Fits designed to inspire fear in your opponents and victory over them.

Three levels of W.A.R. Kits are available to deploy, each containing Packaged Fits inspired by key members of the DUST 514 Dev Team.

W.A.R. Kit ‘Hoplon’ $19.99
Over 400 fully-equipped, battle-ready dropsuits and vehicles are contained in the W.A.R. Kit ‘Hoplon’. Each suit ensures you’re prepared for anything the battle throws your way. Included in this kit is the PlayStation Network exclusive ‘Flying Scotsman’ Assault ck.0 dropsuit; a shield-fortified, prototype-grade beast of the battlefield.

W.A.R. Kit ‘Sparta’ $99.99
The ultimate W.A.R. Kit!
Offered are 2,700 fully-equipped, battle-ready dropsuits and vehicles for ultimate assault and counterstrike! Weaponized and Ready (W.A.R.) Kit ‘Sparta’ will dominate all who oppose you and includes the PlayStation Network exclusive ‘Hellmar’ Sentinel ak.0, the ultimate crowd control fit, built to serve the glory of the Empire.

Our motivation for the release of Uprising 1.5 was to do whatever we felt necessary to improve the chances of new players making it past Day One of playing DUST 514. The first step was to consider what sort of players we were aiming at, and decide which teaching approach to take.

Our target audience is, for the most part, gamers who are familiar with other console first-person shooters and want to try something a little more interesting. This led us to focus primarily on teaching the differences between DUST and other FPS games, rather than trying to teach people, for example, what a gun is and how to move around.

To accomplish this, we considered two major approaches: instruction-driven and objective-driven. An instruction-driven approach ensures that players are clearly shown what to do at each point along the way. Commonly this means highlighting every interaction, locking out everything else, and ensuring that every single step is explained. An objective-driven approach, by contrast, tends towards giving players goals to complete, and telling them just enough to let them figure out how to complete it.

Ultimately, we decided to go with an objective-driven approach. With the assumption that our players are mostly familiar with the genre, we can be more confident that they’ll be able to complete the objectives. DUST is also a fairly dense and free-form game, so people who are likely to stick with it in the long term are assumed to be more likely to find an objective-driven approach a good fit. And objective-driven tutorials are a safer long-term investment in a continually-changing game like DUST, since they’re much less sensitive to changes in UI, mechanics, etc.

With the approach decided, we discussed what we wanted to teach, and settled on three core things for this release:

Joining a battle. This is not rocket science, obviously, but we need to be sure that players can do this before anything else. While working out the best experience, we decided that it’s better having the Neocom open by default, rather than closed, since this makes the available options more obvious for new players and reduces button-presses for everyone. You’ll still be able to cancel into the MQ from the Neocom, but wherever we used to default to the plain MQ view, we now show the Neocom instead.

Creating a new fitting. This is one of the big things that sets DUST apart from other games, but in order to be effective it needs to be understood at an early stage. We teach the very basics: open Dropsuit Fitting, create a new fit, and make the fit valid by adding a weapon. Again, we’ve made some usability enhancements to the UI here, such as adding tips in the blank panes, to smooth out the experience.

Training a skill. Again, in DUST this is fairly different from most other games, and really needs to be understood early on. Here we’re just prompting people to open Skills, pick any skill, buy it, and train it to level 1. We didn’t find much to fix with the UI here, beyond changing the “Train” button to read “Purchase” when you don’t own the skill.

The biggest thing that we’re not teaching is how to use the Market. It’s obviously pretty important, and something we want to address in a future release, but we didn’t feel confident that we could deliver an effective tutorial for this release in the time available and with the current UI.

Beyond deciding on the specific instructions, we also needed to produce the surrounding systems to support it, and a good UI to convey it to players.

When your new character logs in for the first time (don’t worry, this won’t run on existing characters), you’ll be greeted by an introductory pop-up, and then shown the “New Objective” screen for the first task.

Here you can see pretty much what you need to know: what the goal is, what the individual suggested steps are, and what you’ll get for completing it. The rewards for this release are mostly militia gear, intended to get the players into the groove rather than give them a big power boost; the most expensive thing we’re handing out is probably the 1-day active booster in the final stage.

Once you’ve digested that, pressing “Continue” will animate the screen down to the bottom corner, where it’ll settle as an always-on-top reminder of your overall goal and your next step.

This location was picked as it has the fewest conflicts with existing UI, so it shouldn’t ever get in the way of anything. It’s persistent and on-top but it’s not restrictive in any way, so you’re free to ignore it for as long as you like.

As you follow the steps, they’ll complete, scroll off the UI, and be replaced by the next step. Steps where you’re doing something permanent (such as creating a fitting or buying a skill) are saved on the server, while steps that involve opening a UI element are not. This should ensure that anyone interrupted by accidental disconnect or the like picks up again on their next login in a sensible way.

Once you complete your objective, you’ll be shown the “Objective Complete” screen at the next sensible opportunity (e.g., not in the middle of a battle). This nicely-animated screen lets you know that you’ve successfully completed your objective, and been given your reward.

Selecting “Continue” will then load the “New Objective” screen for the next objective, and so on until you’ve completed the whole tutorial. There’s one final pop-up to wrap up, and then you’re done.

That’s pretty much it. Simple and straightforward and — hopefully! — comprehensible. The system’s designed to be extensible (it’s actually using the same back-end system as the daily bonus), so we’re well positioned to add to it in future, but for now we’re pretty happy with what we’re shipping.

Feedback in the comments as usual! For more on DUST 514, visit PlayStation.com.

]]>http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/10/01/dust-514-the-new-player-experience/feed/25http://blog.us.playstation.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Dust514.jpg3.54CCP Games250DUST 514: Suit Up and Roll Out With New Battle Kitshttp://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/07/22/dust-514-suit-up-and-roll-out-with-new-battle-kits/
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/07/22/dust-514-suit-up-and-roll-out-with-new-battle-kits/#commentsMon, 22 Jul 2013 18:01:44 +0000http://blog.us.playstation.com/?p=110731DUST 514, a massively multiplayer free-to-play first-person shooter exclusive to PlayStation 3, you can build an empire, wage war on a galactic scale and change the notorious sci-fi universe of EVE Online forever. But you can't do it without the right gear.]]>

In DUST 514, a massively multiplayer free-to-play first-person shooter exclusive to PlayStation 3, you can build an empire, wage war on a galactic scale and change the notorious sci-fi universe of EVE Online forever. But you can’t do it without the right gear.

As an immortal mercenary, you’ll want to outfit your battle clones with the best dropsuits, weapons, enhancements and equipment to suit your fighting style. The customization options are nearly endless and with a galactic battlefield that’s constantly shifting, you’ll need to experiment with the latest military tech to maximize your performance.

One of the best ways to test out new gear in DUST 514 is with a newly offered Featured Fit. These fully-fitted dropsuit and vehicle setups are custom-made by our designers to showcase the combat advantages of individual races, weapons, defensive strategies and more. Featured Fits are ready to go and don’t require any skill training to equip, so Mercs can use them without burning through hard-earned Skill Points. Just slot them onto your character of choice, and hop into battle.

This week we have two Featured Fits available on the PlayStation Store in the form of the DUST 514 Battle Kit, which bundles 15 deadly Amarr dropsuit fits and 5 ultra-efficient Saga-II Light Assault Vehicles fits, for a deadly combination of shield-enhanced destruction.

In typical Amarr fashion, the Harbinger bristles with laser weapons, but this fit is also armed with augmented shields, allowing you to lay down the burn for longer as you take enemy fire. The LC-225 Saga-II Militia Light Assault Vehicle gets you into battle quicker, and its enhanced shielding helps you stay there.

The DUST 514 Battle Kit hits the PlayStation Store tomorrow for just $0.99. And if you want to make the most of your time with the Harbinger and Saga, pick up the DUST 514 Battle Kit with Active Booster ($1.99) to increase the rate of your skill point gain during combat.

If you’re not already building your own empire in New Eden, download and play DUST 514 today, completely free, and find out why it’s the deepest, most meaningful FPS you’ve ever played. And if you agree that the best empires are built with lasers and LAVs, start your mercenary career with the DUST 514 Battle Kit.

Since DUST 514 launched as the first free-to-play massively multiplayer first-person shooter on PlayStation 3 in May, the battlefields of New Eden have been exploding with activity. If you haven’t jumped in and created your immortal DUST character yet, our latest in-game event is the perfect time to start your mercenary career.

On Thursday, July 11th, we are issuing Mordu’s Challenge, which throws down the gauntlet to players to rack up kills, achieve hacks and cause massive destruction to win lethal in-game gear. Are you the speedy Scout who dives in, hacks objectives, and then gets out? Or are you a Heavy-suited Forge Gunner who can blow apart installations with a few shots? No matter what your play style is, there is an objective for you to reach and earn some excellent gear.

From Thursday, July 11th until Thursday, July 18th, you can take part in any public match to show Mordu’s Legion your skills! The event offers four separate challenges to take on. Go for the goals that most suit your play style or take down all the objectives and earn a special bonus reward!

In the universe of DUST 514, Mordu’s Legion is one of the oldest, most respected, and powerful mercenary outfits in existence. When the first cloned soldier, code-named Templar One, went rogue and broke away from his Amarr overlords, the Legion gave him sanctuary. Mordu’s Legion was the first to embrace the cloned soldier not merely as a weapon, but as a human being.

Yet since those early days, millions of these cloned soldiers have emerged and set up mercenary companies of their own. Faced with scores of independents who are willing and able to die and die again, the Legion’s place in the cluster is at risk. Now their eccentric founder, Muriya Mordu, has decided to issue a challenge to every cloned mercenary to prove their worth. And he’s backing up his words with weapons, dropsuits, and equipment for anyone who can show off the power of the new order.

No official entry is required for this event. Simply play DUST 514 and your statistics will be tracked and recorded. More information on this and future DUST 514 events planned for the summer can be found in the official DUST 514 July Events Developer Blog.

]]>http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/07/10/dust-514-live-event-mordus-challenge-starts-tomorrow/feed/47http://blog.us.playstation.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/dust.jpg3.66Community Developer, CCP Games470FanFest: DUST 514 Deploys May 14th on PS3http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/04/27/dust-514-deploys-may-14th-on-ps3/
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/04/27/dust-514-deploys-may-14th-on-ps3/#commentsSat, 27 Apr 2013 19:44:07 +0000http://blog.us.playstation.com/?p=104995FanFest yet. By now you have probably heard news of the upcoming launch date for DUST 514, where DUST 514 concludes its Open Beta phase, set for the very appropriate date of 5.14.2013 upon which we fully release the first and only full “Free-to-Play” shooter ever on console. ]]>Hi all – I am writing this in the midst CCP’s annual EVE convention in Iceland, our biggest FanFest yet. By now you have probably heard news of the upcoming launch date for DUST 514, where DUST 514 concludes its Open Beta phase, set for the very appropriate date of 5.14.2013 upon which we fully release the first and only full “Free-to-Play” shooter ever on console.

We could not be more excited to truly begin the uprising of our DUST Immortal Soldiers into the EVE Universe of New Eden. We could not ask for a better partner in PlayStation to release DUST 514 on PS3 and we could not have achieved all of the groundbreaking work without the support, feedback and passion of our Beta testers and fans.

Being surrounded by the enthusiasm of our community – both online and at FanFest in person – is an incredible experience for a developer. We spend countless hours working on the game, finally meeting and brainstorming with our users face to face is an incredible pay off, as we celebrate with literally thousands of fans here in Reykjavik in and those that are following us online.

Entering the second decade for EVE Online (May 6th is the 10 year anniversary), announcing the launch of DUST 514 and experiencing the excitement of our loyal fans, CCP could not ask for a better weekend.

Even though DUST 514 is concluding its Beta phase with the phenomenal Uprising update – which includes tons of new stuff, from the major graphics update, to huge new features like player controlled Planetary Conquest – this is just the beginning. We have more major updates throughout 2013 and for years to come, just like we have done with EVE Online for the past 10 years. We are honored to have you on this journey with us.

Get your Fittings ready, with the Uprising on 5.14, the EVE Universe wars on the Planets of New Eden now truly begin.

Each spring for almost a decade, legions of gamers flock to Reykjavik, Iceland, to join CCP for Fanfest. This year, we’re celebrating the DUST 514 open beta and the 10th anniversary of EVE Online with our grandest party yet. And you can watch all the action via livestream on your PS3.

There will be panels, presentations, huge reveals, and answers to many of your DUST 514 questions. Worldwide leaders in science and industry will be on hand to show you how the science fiction tech of New Eden is quickly becoming science fact in our world. CCP staff will mingle with the players, and we’ll bring down the house (and maybe the Arctic Circle) in the epic Party at the Top of the World on Saturday night.

At the DUST 514 keynote address on Thursday, we’ll let you in on what’s next for the planetary warfare already raging on the open beta. Peek at the improvements, additions, and eye-on-the-horizon plans for this revolutionary shooter that shares a universe with hit MMORPG EVE Online.

And since DUST 514 and EVE Online share a universe, this year, for the first time ever, we’re hosting a combined PvP tournament featuring both games, with big prizes for the winners. We’ll also be announcing the 8th Council of Stellar Management, the only democratically elected, developer-endorsed player council in gaming.

Fanfest sold out completely in record time this year, with over 1,500 players flying in from around the world. If you’re not among them, never fear, since you can still catch Fanfest streaming through your PS3. Watch all the festivities, hosted by our awesome EVE TV team, from the comfort of your own homes.

Fanfest is happening April 25th through 27th, 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM ET (3:00 AM to 3:00 PM PT). You can find the livestream on the “What’s New” section of the XMB.

With the help of our players, we at CCP have learned a great deal throughout last year of DUST 514‘s beta period, especially with regard to the system at the core of your character’s advancement and progression: the skill system. Most importantly, we’ve gained an understanding of how you are using the items to advance through the game. This is all thanks to the terrific amount of player feedback we’ve received during the beta period.

As we started work on re-aligning the progression tree for the new Uprising build of DUST 514, set for release on May 6th, we realized that trying to map the new skills, bonuses and requirements to your existing items was not only complicated on the technical side, but also likely unfair to you. You may have committed to a certain play style, and with an overhauled layout and collection of skills, you may find yourself regretting some of your prior choices. We have thus decided that it is far better to re-spec not only the skills but items as well. In short, you will get your skill points (SP) back and the ISK and AUR (in-game currencies) value of any item that is removed from your inventory. Below are more details on how this works.

First, we have removed the secondary and tertiary requirement from all skills. This means that while skills may have multiple parent skills in a linear succession, they will not have multiple direct prerequisite skills. We are also introducing a brand new node-based view of the skill tree, and you are able to upgrade a skill multiple levels at a time provided you have the skill points to do so. This is a major improvement from the old list approach. We are retaining the list view in another section of the menu, for the nostalgia and for those that simply like lists (you know who you are).

When the upcoming Uprising build is released on May 6th, your character(s) will be reimbursed all the skill points that they have earned and used to date, for redistribution under the new schema. Note that this re-spec only applies to your current skills, and items that you have in your inventory. The refund value of ISK and AUR items will be based on the market value at the time of the re-spec.

Details on the specifics of the changes will be covered in a separate dev blog (coming soon) and will contain a list of changes expected, as well as additional info about the revamped tech tree and a full list of in-game items for the Uprising update.

Along with the skill tree layout changes, we are constantly balancing items based on your feedback and our own findings from our captures and databases. You will notice that some items have changed attributes, including removal or change in color schemes of certain drop-suits and other items.

In addition to this skill system evolution, the Uprising release will bring many more upgrades, advances and balances. In short, you can expect a lot more new content to play with. We are very excited and proud of the Uprising release and we couldn’t have done it without our dedicated beta testers. With all the improvements and new things coming with our next release, there is no better time than now to join DUST 514 and experience the immersive world of New Eden.

]]>http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/04/17/dust-514-uprising-may-6th-skill-system-upgrade/feed/26http://blog.us.playstation.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/dust.jpg3.94(CCP Praetorian), Creative Director, CCP Games260DUST 514: Equipment is Your Friendhttp://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/03/25/dust-514-equipment-is-your-friend/
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/03/25/dust-514-equipment-is-your-friend/#commentsMon, 25 Mar 2013 14:01:18 +0000http://blog.us.playstation.com/?p=102654DUST 514 is about far more than who has the biggest gun. Equipment plays a vital part in defining the role you play on the battlefield. ]]>

Success on the battlegrounds of DUST 514 is about far more than who has the biggest gun. Equipment plays a vital part in defining the role you play on the battlefield. Fit a nanite injector to your assault type II dropsuit and you’re a front line medic, resurrecting your fallen team mates. Fit a repair tool and you become a combat engineer, repairing damaged dropsuits and vehicles as well as giving your squad active armour repair during a firefight.

The fondly nicknamed ‘logibro’ logistics dropsuits are of course the kings of battlefield equipment usage. With more equipment slots than any other dropsuit class they can carry multiple equipment types making them incredible useful squad mates. A Logistics A-Series can for example, resupply his squad with nanohives, provide tactical spawn locations with drop uplinks and keep them fighting fit with a repair tool.

It’s been really interesting to see what types of equipment have been the most popular during the Beta so far. In first place we have the ever-popular Nano Hive with an epic 106,537,393 units purchased for ISK! Following this we then have repair tools, remote explosives and lastly drop uplinks, but even together they couldn’t topple the mighty Nano Hive having collectively sold 104,913,684 units. If you check out the graph below you can see the relative popularity as well as the massive spike when we opened up the Beta floodgates.

So you know that there are a bunch of new weapons rolling off the New Eden production lines in the next update, but what about equipment? Well, we’re planning on reintroducing the Active Scanner. Some of the veteran Beta players may remember it’s rather buggy first appearance (followed by rapid disappearance) last year during the closed testing. We’ve taken some time to retool its functionality, add new HUD elements and feedback mechanisms so soon it will be back, new and improved! The scanner is a powerful squad support tool, your enemies will have nowhere to hide as you scan and transmit their positions to your squad mates. I expect to see a rise in the popularity of profile dampener modules once the new scanners roll out as people try to mask their signals.

A-45 Linear Active Scanner

Sending out a triggered pulse of high-frequency magnetometric waves and interpreting the results with an uplinked onboard computer, the Active Scanner gives ground units a snapshot of enemy positions. Projection nodes set at specific angles on the handheld device, generate a vectored impulse capable of extracting objects from high-noise environments. Feedback from the pulse is filtered to reduce ambient clutter and pinpoint targets lacking IFF signals.

Though the amount of energy required to produce the blast is much greater than its on-board power source can readily generate, the Active Scanner makes use of redundant J-24 micro-capacitors to circulate and build the charge up to the required output. The resulting delay between activations is a small price to pay for the enormous tactical advantage the device provides its user, even considering that the amount of sensor backscatter generated reveals the user to all nearby enemies at the same time it is detecting their positions.

So that’s what you can expect in the next update, but what about beyond that? There are two equipment items on the top of our list that we want to get into the game as soon as we can. The first is a Shield Generator. Ever wished for some cover where there isn’t any? Wish no more: With the Shield Generator you’ll be able to deploy your own personal static shield bubble. Handy when a ship is dropping bombs on your head from orbit or you’ve been caught in the open by an enemy trying to melt you with a laser rifle.

The second item is a Cloaking Field. This sneaky bit of kit will not only make you (almost) invisible to other combatants, it will also blind turret AI targeting systems. It isn’t perfect invisibility, mind you — scanners will still pick you up if you haven’t masked your signal well enough, motion will disrupt the field to some extent, and weapon fire will cause the field to shut down. This means it will take some skill to use to its maximum potential. This item is going to be a real game changer, particularly for Scout dropsuits which have been screaming for stealth gear.

There are quite a few more items on our list as always (one begins with a ‘w’) but I think that’s all we’ll be revealing for now.